Brought back lots of college memories. Fun juxtaposition of heavy lyrics and breezy, upbeat music on lots of songs. Some songs come across as a little too smug and self-important. 4/5.

I remember hearing NPR’s Robin Hilton talk about how he would play this for his newborn son every single morning for the first 2 or 3 years of his life, hoping he would absorb the beauty humans are capable of when they’re at their very best. I think he might have been right. 5/5

I feel like I should be working on an old Trans Am in a neighbor’s garage and it’s 1974 and I have a mullet. Lead guitarist must have developed some wild scoliosis carrying this album.

Ah, Jerry. Making people separate the artist from the art decades before R Kelly and Diddy. Absolute piece of shit, but that’s a hell of a show. 1 star human, 5 star show.

This is fine.

I can understand why it’s great and revolutionary and all that, but it’s not my thing. Also, the Nico songs sound like something straight out of SNL.

Miles Fucking Davis, ladies and gentlemen. I want to give a 17 minute standing ovation but I’m walking my dog in the freezing cold and the neighbors might call the cops.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. But please make sure “Lead a Normal Life” is the music for the closing credits of my eventual biopic.

This is beyond impressive on its own, and then finds itself on a whole different planet when you compare it to the other stuff that was popular in the early 60s. I could listen on repeat for weeks. Tight, crisp, and doesn’t miss a beat. JB was a pro. So many of these are objectively 5 star albums (some might even call them the 1001 greatest ever), so I’ll be a punk and split hairs. The recording quality itself sounds a little hollow at times and seems to fade in and out, especially towards the end. So, like, 4.49999/5.

One on hand, it’s cool because this is the kind of stuff I’d never seek out on my own, much less listen to the whole album. On the other, I feel like it’s 2 am and my college roommate is asleep and I see his phone open to some voice memos of seedlings of songs that he and his band have been toying around with and I take a listen and shrug and think, “Eh, not bad. Good for him.” I don’t hate it, but I definitely don’t love it. These feel like the beginnings of song ideas, and the rug gets pulled out from under my feet right as I start feeling invested. But maybe I just don’t get it. This is probably a dream for folks with ADD.

The woman can sing, but what in the Saved By The Bell are these instrumentals? It’s been interesting how some of these albums hold up and feel literally timeless. This one…does not. But “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is an absolute 11/10 banger.

Loved it. I’ll be back to spend more time with this one. There’s something about a lot of old school hip hop that can come across as corny, but Public Enemy avoids those pitfalls entirely.

🤘🏻😝🤘🏻 This is not my…jam. Lol get it? But I bet I could mow my lawn about twice as fast if I was listening to this.

I was fully prepared to begrudgingly listen, punch in a 2 star review, and move on to the next one. But I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would? I definitely didn’t hate it.

There would be plenty of moments when I’m not at all in the mood for this, but this was not one of those moments. Caught myself pretty early on bobbing my head, drumming my fingers, and thinking “hell yeah, Tom Tom Club.” It’s pretty wild that this thing came out in 1981. I feel like it could come out today and slide right in to the new releases pile.

I liked this. A little rock. A little blues. A ballad or two. The variety of the album kept this from getting stale at any point. But I couldn’t get past how he sounds like Rod Stewart.